Hospital emergency department visits related to the use of the illicit drug methamphetamine rose from 67,954 in 2007 to 102,961 in 2011 according to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Overall, there were 1,252,500 visits to hospital emergency departments linked to the use of all illicit drugs. Methamphetamine, or […]

10 Facts About Marijuana Marijuana is having increasingly widespread and detrimental effects on American society. Those Americans who support enforcing existing laws on marijuana (a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act) are being attacked in the media and by those who favor liberalized marijuana laws and consider themselves to be open-minded on […]

Science Spotlight June 16, 2014 A variety of oral drug testing devices are available to determine recent marijuana use. For the first time, a new NIDA study compares the ability of these devices to accurately detect specific cannabinoids – the chemical compounds found in marijuana. The researchers looked at diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency of […]

Marijuana causes serious impairment in motor skills, judgment, and perception, which are necessary for operating a vehicle safely. In the past, testing drivers for recent marijuana use has not been as simple as testing for alcohol, but preliminary research on the detection of THC – the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana – in the breath […]

A new NIAAA- and NIDA-funded study shows an increased number of marijuana-positive Colorado drivers involved in fatal motor vehicle crashes since Colorado’s legalization of medical marijuana in 2009. A similar increase was not seen in the 34 states that did not have medical marijuana laws when this study was conducted. During the same time period, […]

FBI Director James Comey may have gotten into hot water for publicly questioning the practice, but Fourth Amendment advocates have been fighting workplace testing for years. A simple search for “how to pass a drug test” on YouTube yields no less than 50,000 results. From guzzling cranberry juice to strategically catching your urine “mid-stream,” strangers […]

Congress Shouldn’t Roll Back Safety; the Steps We’ve Taken Keep Tired Truckers off the Road Posted by Anne Ferro Improving safety and saving lives is at the heart of our mission at DOT. That’s why we are committed to keeping tired truckers off the road–for their safety and the safety of others–through common sense rules backed […]